Video Card Advice for The Sims 3

[Natalie105]

I've just bought The Sims 3 and when I play it it's pretty slow! I'm sure it's my video card because it's only built in and I need to upgrade it anyway, so I was wondering if anyone could suggest the cheapest card that would run the game so smoothly. Attached is a snap shot of my PC's performance for running The Sims 3 and even though it passed, it does not run as I hoped it would!

EDIT: Just realised that you cant really see the results! So I'll type up my Video Card Results.

NVIDIA GeForce 7050 / nForce 610i

1.8GB with 3D Acceleration

Pixel Shader 3.0

Oh and by the way I would like to have all the settings on high and to the best possible when I play so I will need a card that can handle that

 

[Muffin Man]

post your pc's specs and psu info

 

[Natalie105]

post your pc's specs and psu info

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4 Ghz

RAM: OCZ Gold 4GB

OS: Windows Vista Ultimate x64 Service Pack 2

Video Card: Mentioned Above

PSU: OCZ Xtreme 500W

 

[Muffin Man]

well, since your using onboard video, pretty much any upgrade will give you an improvement.

what is your budget?

 

[veg1992]

Sims 3 isn't very demanding, you should be able to use a very cheap HD 4670 (will run on pretty much any comp, as it requires no power connector) or HD 4770 (powerful, does require a power connector, but beats an 8800GT, but might be a little overboard for just Sims3) and run that thing on max.

 

[Natalie105]

I didn't really want to spend any more than £50 but I guess I'm going to have to. Is there anything that will throw it around under £50?

EDIT: I have found an old Radeon 9250 128MB laying around the house, will that be ok?

 

[Muffin Man]

this might be a good one to look into, its £50:

XFX HD 4650 512MB DDR2 VGA DVI TV Out PCI-E Graphics Card - Ebuyer

 

[hikaricloud]

EDIT: I have found an old Radeon 9250 128MB laying around the house, will that be ok?

That's an AGP card, it won't work in your machine.

 

[veg1992]

Didn't it also come in PCI?

But that card beat the FX 5500's (which would be Geforce 5500's) and much worse than your current card

 

[Slam'n Systems]

Just to let you know, my current build posted in my signature with my BFG 280 GTX video card could play The Sims 3 on max settings perfectly with no glitching/lag in graphics.